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On the morning I was leaving Mumbai, I went across the street to Leopold’s from the hostel I was staying in.  I don’t remember what I ate but I remember having my notebook open on the table wanting to record everything I observed around me, which was a lot because the restaurant was heavily decorated.  I ended up not writing anything and just eating and drinking tea.

1:18 PM This worked trampled to death news over the Thanksgiving holiday in New York is perhaps more disturbing to me than the Mumbai attacks, because this was supposedly civilized people who just couldn’t behave like humans to buy whatever crap they needed to feel happy.

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since Friday morning!’" Cribbs said. "They kept shopping."

I have never been an advocate for this, but in this case, I believe the dead worker’s family should sue Wal-Mart.  This is one of the many unforeseen repercussions of the insatiable-by-nature corporate greed.  It would be preferable if they could sue each and every individual who rushed into that store that morning, causing this man’s death, but since that’s not possible, the next best thing is to sue the authorities that enabled that situation in the first place.

I checked just now and there’s nothing on Walmart.com’s homepage mentioning this incident.  At least they had the decency to close the store for a few hours.  The article states that the store opened again at 1 PM and was packed within minutes.

"I look at these people’s faces and I keep thinking one of them could have stepped on him," said one employee. "How could you take a man’s life to save $20 on a TV?"

12:20 PM I don’t know who this writer is and I personally have nothing against him, but he should know that the information he’s posted here is utterly useless and somewhat disturbing:

The terrorists in Mumbai might have committed inhuman acts, but in at least one way, they are just like you and me. When authorities cut the cable feeds to the hotels where the terrorists held over 200 hostages, they relied on another piece technology to monitor the police response and the world’s reaction to the attacks: BlackBerrys. Commandos were not only surprised to find the devices in the terrorists’ rucksacks, but that they used the internet to look beyond local Indian media for information, watching the global reaction in real-time as well.

(From article, bold mine)

First of all, is the fact that they used BlackBerry devices what makes these terrorists "just like you and me"?  Not because they’re human?  Or they’ve been raised possibly being brainwashed their whole lives by religious propaganda?

And secondly, were they also wearing Nike shoes, Adidas track pants, and Puma T-shirts?  And most likely they were using Motorola walkie-talkies to communicate with each other, no?

If he’s trying to present the point that they were connected to the world’s reaction to their actions throughout the ordeal, the writer should have stuck to that angle.  But sensationalism is what sells, and I’ll admit, it’s the mention of Blackberry in the title that got me to view the article.  But in my defense, I had the sentiments I’m divulging here right off the bat - that is, it’s not because I didn’t like the article or it disappointed me in some way that I feel this way.  The title caught my attention but my first reaction was "What kind of useless information is that to share?"

Here’s a list of national parks and monuments (site) in the U.S. that I’ve visited so far:

• Mammoth Caves
• Yellowstone
• Yosemite
• Grand Canyon
• Rocky Mountains
• Bandelier
• Petroglyph
• Everglades

When I got the idea to list them I thought it would be longer.  Anyway, I’ll write more (and more properly) about the trip once it’s over, including routes taken, places visited, and photos of those places.

Madagascar

• Madagascar has the greatest variety of fauna of any island
• The chameleon’s tongue is as long as its body
• There are cactii that grow as tall as trees

Tibet

• The plateau of Tibet is higher in elevation than the tallest peaks of the Rockies
• In Tibet temperatures can drop 80 degrees Fahrenheit in one day

Amazon river

• The Amazon crosses 2/3 of the South American continent, and joins a thousand other rivers
• The river basin is almost as large as the continental United States, encompassing 9 nations
• Giant beetles, venomous caterpillars, spiders that walk on water!

Namib Desert

• Of all deserts, the Namib in southwest Africa contains the greatest variety of life

For example:

• You can fill out a prescription refill online and it’s ready in 15 minutes.  There’s an electronic board in the comfortable pharmacy waiting area where your name shows up when your prescription’s ready, so you don’t have to fidget around wondering or repeatedly ask them.
• When a pharmacist from behind the glass wall sees that you’re left unattended (because the clerk helping you went to assist another clerk who had a question), she asks "Have you been helped?"
• On the side is an electronic filing machine that holds prescriptions.  They flick a switch and a new row of prescriptions rolls down while the one at the bottom rolls out of sight, like a rolodex.
• You go in for an out-patient routine surgery, and when they tell you it’ll be about an hour to 1.5 hours, they have you out and ready to go in 45 minutes.

All the equipment is in pristine condition, from the medical gadgets down to the chairs and doors of the facility.  There are no waiting lines anywhere (except maybe 4-5 people waiting for their prescriptions).

It’s simply amazing to watch, such efficiency operating at such a large scale.  For those lucky enough to have it, this seems like private healthcare done right.

2:13 PM In light of the ubiquitous presence of Facebook, Twitter, FriendsFeed and the like, I’d like to take a moment and think of all the unconnected people out there - not in other countries but right here in America.

Picture what they look like, what they’re doing right now, what they’re doing when we’re on Facebook and Twitter.  I wonder if they even know what Facebook and Twitter are.  Maybe some of them don’t even have e-mail or Internet (<-apparently Internet is properly spelled with a capital I) access.

"You still not reading?

"Just newspapers.  It’s anti-American!"

Boston Legal, Season 5, Episode 8

3:00 PM First snow of the year, at least on the ground here.  There’s been snow on the mountains for a while.

One of the biggest jokes God has played with humans: So many of us are able to reproduce who cannot carry through with the repercussions.

Kleist had an "unstable and almost schizophrenic personality and his works relect his passionately uncompromising nature and his periodic fits of wild enthusiasm and morose melancholia. He committed suicide in 1811." (Source)

2:55 PM I’ve been tracking my bandwidth usage for about two weeks using Networx.  Here’s what it looks like:

11:44 AM Go to any Starbucks on or near a college campus (like I just did), and you’re bound to see a few things:

• College students (duh)
  • who happen to be mostly good looking girls
    • with certain accessories (the non-fashion kind):
      • photocopies of articles or textbook pages for class
      • a highlighter
      • a laptop computer.
    • Sometimes you’ll see other study aids such as
      • a notepad
      • or a notebook
      • or maybe a textbook or two,
    • but I find the three I mentioned above to be the most common.

Unrelated to that, I recalled today, while walking the Boulder Creek Path, the general notion that some people say that competition motivates them to perform their best, in a way that they can’t get motivated otherwise.  The thought occurred to me that, if, for some of us, it takes the defeating/demoralizing of our fellow humans to make ourselves feel better, feel like winners, what does that say about our evolution as a species?  Perhaps I’m simplifying the notion, because where there is the question of winning there is the flip-side of taking loss gracefully, but I don’t think it’s unfair to consider each side in isolation.  Regardless of how the “loser” takes his loss, for the “winner” to require someone to win against seems a bit crude to me.

And that point brings me to the notion that “No man is an island.”  We only exist in relation to each other.  So where there is relation, is there necessarily competition?  Where there are two, must one always be greater than the other?

But was it someone wickedly genius who came up with this system or did it evolve on its own, as the population grew and something was needed to differentiate John from Joe from Josephine?

My instinct says this is a phenomenon too sublime for anyone to deliberately invent, but as soon as I think that I consider the artifice of religion, which rules the lives of practically every person and yet was the construct of a few wicked geniuses.

So who knows what the truth is.

It baffles me when I see cars and SUVs flying past me, accelerating, adding speed, only to have to brake at the red light they can clearly see less than a quarter mile up ahead.  Not only are they reducing their gas mileage, they’re causing more wear on both their engine (when they accelerate) and their brakes (to lose that speed they just picked up for no reason).

I’m not saying they need to hit the brakes that far back, but at least let off the gas pedal when you can clearly see:

1. That the light up ahead is red
2. It’s a major intersection, so it’ll be a while before the light turns
3. There’s already a long line of cars in your line sitting at the light, so chances are you’ll have to slow down (if not come to a complete stop) before you get to go again!